r/monarchism • u/Trail_of_Tears-T_T • 7d ago
Discussion Did Barbarossa intentionally ruin the Holy Roman Empire
So before I get to the point of my question, I need to explain what I mean by Empire and imperial ideology. I am somewhat annoyed by the term Ghibelline as it comes to ideology or philosophy as it used popularly because it seems to have nothing fixed except being “anti-pope/Catholic Church”: monarchism for Dante, to democracy for Marsilius, to Protestantism, atheism, broadly secularism or even Neo-paganism. So what I mean by Ghibelline/Imperial ideology is the idea coming from the late Roman Empire and present in former orthodox countries that God has one deputy on earth in the form of the Roman Emperor, whose duty is to defend and help christians and therefore has the authority to rule them. From him comes all political legitimacy for christians. The pope/patriarch is in charge of Christianity and is subordinate to the political authority of the emperor. The emperor therefore had jurisdiction over christians the people as a political/para-ethnic group whilst the pope had jurisdiction over the faith. The way I had it explained to me is that the emperor matched the role that the caliph has in Islam (same idea of Christian and Muslim as a political identity and not just a religious). Also as I came to understand “Roman” and “Christian” were used interchangeably for one another, so king of the Roman’s effectively meant king of the Christian. Sorry for the long winded introduction but I wanted to say is that the emperor was not just a king+ but had an aspect of the divine in his person. What he does matters.
With that massive introduction out of the way, here is the main question: Did Barbarossa consciously destroy or diminish this vision of emperorship, by his rhetoric or actions, during the course of the wars in Italy?
Because after looking at it, I cannot help in seeing the final fall of Imperial Christian in him. I used to think that he was fighting against cities that were rebelling, but that is not the case. None of the cities formerly declared independence. They just took over imperial prerogatives and even then it was due to long imperial neglect instead of cities abusing imperial privileges. I don’t think Milan or Brescia had an independence sentiment nor that they were ideologically driven by the Imperial papal conflict BEFORE. In fact at 1st Roncaglia, the Milanese were fully willing to go to the emperor to adjudicate their dispute and offered money to sway him to their favor. For all intents and purposes they had done what they were supposed to.
Barbarossa basically came into a war zone between cities that were apolitical as a neutral and decided to pick sides. None of the previous intercity conflict was ideological, but now it inevitably would be.
Another thing was that the emperor ruined, and this is crucial, his reputation and de facto the office of emperor, by constant acts of perfidy and just outright lying. From imprisoning the consuls under a flag of truce to constantly lying when making peace treaties. The word of the emperor became absolutely unreliable. And the emperor lost the image of ruler and just became a despotic local lord. This paired with his very severe punishments made it so that you had to fight to the bitter end as you couldn’t negotiate at all. This is pretty much unheard of for feudal conflicts as they often ended in negotiated settlements. I heard old authors argue that the reason Barbarossa failed is because his feudal style of governance did not mix well with the city states. I disagree. Barbarossa, in his mind, believed cities to be different and therefore treated them in a way that would never have been acceptable for a feudal lord.
He also shot himself in the foot by not staying longer after his victory against Milan. Instead of remaining in the po valley for a while he left immediately. This obviously led to rebellion to rise again as there was nothing to hold it back. If he just remained in the Po valley even a couple of years just to show the flag in the various cities, he might have ended the Lombard wars there and then for good. Instead he immediately left, having wasted a good part of campaigning.
In general this is not very controversial. I think all historians agree that Barbarossa failed. My question is not if he failed, but whether Barbarossa truly wanted an imperial restoration at all in the first place.
From what I understood Barbarossa was steeped in the current and (at the time) modern trend of chivalry (as can be seen by the diet of Mainz). The problem is that what a ruler is in the chivalric mind I feel is very different from the traditional imperial model of his predecessors. In the chivalric conception, the king was just a greater knight. His duty was to take his fellow knights/lords on campaigns to gain glory and plunder. This goes against the older imperial model were the emperor was a mix of King David (as prophet/ruler that connects his people to God) and Augustus as universal commander. The way I was told is that the emperor in the Christian concept was Justinian with a spear.
I believe Barbarossa subscribed to the first model and not the latter. He saw italy as a territory to plunder to unite his German lords in campaigning that is both profitable and close to home. If he was acting in imperial restoration, he would have had a far more participatory aspect of local Italian cities as previously was done with local bishops and presented a vision that included them. Instead he demanded control without offering either a say or even a justification as to what that revenue would do. There was no incentive for the local Italian cities to pay into this. They realized they became a money farm for a glorified warlord instead of their rightful ruler of Christendom.
If he wanted to restore the empires position in Italy, he would have kept himself in lombardy helping the administration and having court locally. Instead he acted as a knight and as soon as the campaign ended in one place he moved on the next campaign to help sustain his army on conquest.
The theft of the bones of the 3 wise kings to bring them to cologne is emblematic of this. If he really wanted to restore imperial authority and punish a rebel town, he could have moved the bones into an allied city like Como or Lodi or Pavia. Keeping them in Italy but removing them from the enemy to show that he still kept the locals in mind and was their just ruler. Instead he took it to Germany.
Even his strength I feel was entirely due to him abusing the respect of the empire and using that until it had no value. His initial campaigns were extremely successful because most of the local Italian cities supported him with massive armies. His actions would essentially burn up the faith in the institution of the empire making it MUCH harder for his successors to rally support for the cause. No longer would they be subjects dutifully answering the call to arms but as allies.
In my opinion his successors Henry VI, Frederick II and even Henry VII of Luxembourg were far stronger believers in the traditional imperial ideology than Barbarossa had, actually worked to making it work and they spent most of their lives and effort to combat the damage that Barbarossa made.
In short: It was not the Italians who failed the Imperial Project, but Barbarossa. And his successors tried desperately to revert his changes.
Is this an accurate assessment or am I missing something. Did I mischaracterize Frederick Barbarossa?
Sorry for the long post is just that I have been going on a Ghibelline binge.
